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Monthly Archives: March 2015

The beginning of this month saw the first performance of the Good Vibrations Parkinson’s Choir and I am happy to say that it was a great success; a sell out performance and a fund raiser for the local Parkinson’s UK branch. We all enjoyed ourselves immensely, well done to our wonderful choir mistress Lou Beckerman.

No sooner had I recovered from that when we were off to visit the lovely daughter in Melbourne, Australia. I have started to look at what happens when you are diagnosed with Parkinson’s out here, a few facts this time and more information in the next Blog. Based on researched by Deloitte a couple of years ago there are 100,000 Parkinson’s disease sufferers in Australia, including roughly 2% of the population over the age of 65. Not sure exactly how the Oz Medicare system works but it is estimated that the annual cost per person with the condition is about £6,000 pounds. I take Rasagiline which has only fairly recently been made available here. There is an organisation called Parkinson’s Australia which provides a similar role to our Parkinson’s UK.

We have recently returned from a weekend away in beautiful Byron Bay, situated a couple of hours drive south from Brisbane. It has stunning beaches and a National Park based around a lighthouse. We took daily walks there, admiring the Dolphins which frolicked in the seas around there and were lucky enough to see a koala just a few feet away from us.

Australia certainly has a lot to offer, more from Down Under next time!